All of Bishop Ireton High School skipped classes today for a good cause.
More than 700 students, teachers and administrators participated in a cleanup of 30 sites in and around Alexandria, including along the city’s waterfront, Holmes Run and Four Mile Run Park.
Ideally, the Four Mile Run Park Trail would connect the two sides of the Arlandria park. Since 2021 the bridge at the center of that trail has been shut down, but work is starting this month to change that.
An inspection in summer 2021 found a hole in the bridge and the city determined the bridge was not suitable for use. The bridge was closed in August 2021. A daytime detour runs just north of the bridge along the Four Mile Run Wetland Trail. The nighttime detour runs down to Reed Avenue
Alexandria is safe after a dumping incident in Four Mile Run in Arlington.
Arlington advised residents to stay out of stream runs along popular parks like Bluemont Park, Barcroft Park and the Shirlington dog park after a roll-off dumpster fell into a storm drain near N. Ohio Street, according to ARLnow.
Alexandria’s Parks and Recreation Commission will discuss funding for three city park projects next week.
Up for discussion is a $436,000 project to install a launch area/paddling access at Four Mile Run Park, $21,000 for student gardens at Samuel Tucker Elementary School and a $25,000 pocket park at Lake Cook.
Alexandria and Arlington will start clearing debris and dredging Four Mile Run in September, and the project will close sections of the park from the public for four to six months.
The City and County maintain a shared flood-control channel in the lower portion of the nine-mile-long stream, and have partnered to dredge Four Mile Run since 1974.
The West Glebe Road bridge over Four Mile Run will be closing completely in two weeks, and will remain closed to vehicles for nearly a year.
The circa-1956 bridge connects Arlington and Alexandria near the I-395/S. Glebe Road interchange. It has been deemed “structurally deficient” since 2018. A $10 million project to replace its deck and beams was approved by the Arlington County Board last April as part of a joint project with Alexandria. The project was slated to start this year, but in the meantime engineers have found “continued degradation of the bridge beams.”
(Updated 7:25 p.m.) While there are still some issues with infrastructure over Four Mile Run, Alexandria and Arlington are moving forward with a project to clean out what’s under it.
In a recent newsletter about flooding infrastructure, the city announced an upcoming meeting to discuss the particulars of a dredging project in Four Mile Run.
City staff laid out what’s ahead for some of the city’s stormwater infrastructure projects in a presentation prepared for the City Council’s meeting tonight (Tuesday).
Three large projects to increase sewer capacity are planned in Del Ray, according to the Flood Action Alexandria presentation. Two of the projects — a $34 million undertaking at East Glebe Road and Commonwealth Avenue and a $16 million project at Ashby Street and East Glebe Road — were merged together for planning purposes. The two projects are next to each other in the Four Mile Run watershed.
The Mount Vernon Avenue bridge is a vital link between Alexandria and Arlington, but it’s in rough shape and in desperate need of a refit.
The Arlington Ridge Road/Mount Vernon Avenue bridge over Four Mile Run in rough shape and this morning (Friday) Senator Mark Warner and local leaders met with engineers to review the state of the bridge and advocate for the bridge to get a significant boost from federal funding. Federal funding for bridge infrastructure is currently in the hands of state leaders who will allocate funding to bridge projects around the state.
The West Glebe Road Bridge connecting Arlington and Alexandria is dropping down to one lane in each direction after an inspection found deterioration under the bridge’s sidewalk.
According to a press release from Arlington County, one northbound lane and one southbound lane will be open, with one northbound lane being converted into a pedestrian and bicycle path after the closure of the west sidewalk.
Mayoral candidates engage in public forum — “Alexandria’s mayoral candidates gathered in a virtual forum on Saturday, kicking into high gear to get their message out ahead of the Nov. 2 general election.” [Alexandria Times]
Amazon backs grant program to spur affordable development near D.C.-area transit — “Amazon will fund a new grant program to help local governments and nonprofit developers pursue affordable projects near transit stations, directing $500,000 of its recently announced $2 billion Housing Equity Fund to this effort.” [Washington Business Journal]
